


Battlefield Medicine

by Opalgirl



Category: Tortall - Pierce
Genre: Gen, Goldenlake: Secrets and Lies Week, Missing Scene, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-06
Updated: 2010-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalgirl/pseuds/Opalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal and Alanna, working in a field hospital. The Lioness has more than a few tricks up her sleeve, and not all of them are of the magical variety</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battlefield Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, Neal. Behave and she'll teach you things.

"Queenscove.” The Lioness bent over her patient, listening to the man’s breathing. “Queenscove, come here – now!” she barked, her movements hurried now.

Neal dropped the pile of clean bandages he held and scrambled to his knight-mistress’s side, watching as she pulled a tiny knife and a steel tube from her kit. The tube gleamed with magics meant to keep it sterile, as did the knife.

“My lady?”

“Open his shirt and hold his shoulder closest to you,” she ordered, “I don’t want him moving.”

Working swiftly, Neal did as she commanded, while the patient wheezed, short of breath: “Yer husband, ‘e be a lucky man, Lioness. Figured I best say it afore I die.”

She smiled the grim, tired smile Neal was used to seeing in situations like this, and shook her head. “You aren’t going to die, soldier. My word by the Goddess."

The purple fire of her Gift flared at her fingers as she quickly sliced a small opening into the man’s chest, and before Neal was even aware of what she’d done, she thrust the steel tube into the hole she’d made.

Neal heard air rush from the tube, and the wounded man’s chest heaved, sharply. Lady Alanna nodded and loosely wrapped some bandaging around the base of the tube. “Is that better, soldier?” she asked. “Nod, if you can’t speak.”

The man nodded. “Aye. I can breathe, a bit.”

“Better. Someone else will patch you up properly,” she told the man. “Rest easy, for now.”

“I’ve done all I can do now,” she said, having stepped away from her patient. Her face was paler than normal as she looked around the tent, wearily. “Come on, Nealan. Let’s see if we can’t find food before the next rush comes in. I’ll be useless if I keep this up.”

Neal winced, knowing what she meant – more wounded were undoubtedly coming – and followed.

Even though he _knew_ better than to question the lady, what he had just witnessed was too much. “My lady? Isn’t that tube an opening for infection?”

“It’s only temporary,” Alanna told him, her voice tired and thin. “You heard the air come out of the tube?”

Neal nodded as they crossed the beaten-down ground of the field hospital, headed for the small tents erected for them, for the rare moments they got to use them.

“There was air in between his lungs and the wall of his chest – it would have killed him. I could have thrown more magic at it and mended it, but I’m stretched too thin. It will keep him alive until someone who can heal it properly can get to him – which, if we’re fortunate, will be soon.”

_Father never mentioned such a thing_, Neal wondered, then realized he’d spoken aloud.

“You’ve never been at your father’s side in a field hospital – it’s a method of last resort. I saw a healer do that very thing to a knight who’d very nearly been run through on the tilting field, years ago.” The lady smiled crookedly. “Your father surely never taught you _all_ his tricks, squire. I learned most of _mine_ from him during the Tusaine War.”

She ducked into her own tent to wash, and Neal stood there gazing at the flap she’d shut behind her for a moment. What _else _did she know that she wasn’t telling him? Shaking his head, he went into his own much smaller tent to wash his hands, at the very least. If he managed to survive and make it so she didn’t lose her temper and kill him, _maybe_ she’d teach him her secrets.

 


End file.
